MFL degree if doesn't like essays?

[PrincessOfPreschool]

DS was broadly talented at GCSE but only really enjoyed Maths and Spanish, mostly Spanish. He's now doing 4 A levels - Maths, Spanish, Geog and Chemistry. He's really disliking Geography and says it's the essay element. To be honest, he's not great at expressing himself in writing and doesn't read. He's enjoying maths and Spanish as expected but he's surprised he's also enjoying chemistry as it really was a 'wildcard'.

He was thinking of Spanish at Uni and really wanted to study in Spain for a year, but I'm a bit concerned there's a lot of essay writing by degree level, just in another language.

What else could he do at Uni? He thought maybe Linguistics but we don't know enough about it (will look into it more). What else? He's keen on Oxbridge but I think something he will really enjoy studying is more important.

He’d be better off doing maths and/or chemistry if he doesn’t want to do essays (or read!).

I'm surprised he doesn't get essays in Spanish. I took A level French many decades ago, and one of the exam papers was a three hour literature paper that involved writing several essays.

Why would someone who doesn't like reading even think of doing a Spanish degree? There's a strong focus on literature in a lot of courses.

Linguistics is great but there will be lots of reading and essay writing in that too. Spanish will be a lot of writing in both English and Spanish.
Is Chemistry an option?

Look at the student room for ideas

degrees with no essay writing - The Student Room https://share.google/rhiOxxZAQtFbPTdur

He could do a STEM degree and keep up his language learning separately? He could choose a university that offers free or low cost lessons to its students, and that has exchange partnerships with universities in Spanish speaking countries?

Other countries produce scientists, lawyers, engineers that also speak several languages. All most all U.K. graduates who speak a MFL have a languages degree.

Imperial have an array of science options combined with Spanish.

All most all U.K. graduates who speak a MFL have a languages degree.

Not in my experience. The majority of UK grads I know who speak another language did that language with another subject e.g. economics, law, history, business etc (or are bi/multilingual due to their heritage). I don’t think I know anyone who ‘just’ did MFL.

yes I meant languages as single or joint honours.

Maths and Modern Languages at UCL looks more focused on the language proficiency than the literature side. Very competitive but he’s clearly at that level.

I wonder what attracts him to a pure language degree if he’s not interested in reading or writing in that language.

It's a good question on why he loves it. He loves accents and learning new vocab. He really, really loves speaking and communicating. He watches Tiktoks in Spanish, his phone is set to Spanish and he chats on language sites to Spanish students. He just loves the language! He's very good at it, finds it easy (not yet started lit as he's Y12), enjoys it and his teacher was shocked he doesn't have any Spanish speaking family or friends. He loves the mechanics of language (verbs, tenses etc).

Thanks for the tips on STEM with a language. That's probably the way forward.

There are MFL degrees which focus on the language more than literature so he should look at those. Often combined with something like maths or engineering?

Tbh tho I agree he will need to write essays for Spanish A level. Not as many as @RampantIvy and I had to write for French A level but an essay about a book and another about a film. In Spanish as well, unlike my A levels and lit-heavy degree.

I was trying to see which unis would do a more language-based degree but MFL is falling rapidly out of favour, sadly. Heriot-Watt offers maths with Spanish which may be of interest.

I think Spanish at Oxford would be heavy on the lit.

Southampton does Linguistics with two languages - Spanish and a choice of French or German, which is taught from scratch. He can choose modules to shape the degree to his interests, so he could make it more science based and analytical .

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/courses/two-modern-languages-linguistics-french-german-spanish-degree-ba#modules

Heriot Watt used to run an interpreting course where there was very little focus on literature. (I was on an exchange to Moscow with some H-W students, many years back.) They were only expected to study one novel for their senior honours year.

I've no idea whether it's still running.

ETA Have just done a search. No sign of Russian, but they're still doing Spanish. Looks like he'd need to crash another language in first year.

www.hw.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/modern-languages-interpreting-and-translating

If he likes Spanish he should defo do Spanish. I’d recommend doing it with a (useful) subject that is not another language. Economics would be good. (I speak from experience as a joint MFL degree holder).

IME, doing half a Spanish degree he’ll cope with the essays, they weren’t as long as in other subjects (being not in English), and learning about the culture is fun. He could also choose history or film options instead.

If it's essays he's not confident in then he can address this and learn basic essay writing skills.
I'm towards the end of my Forensic Psychology degree now, I graduate in the summer, so as you can imagine I've been hit with lots of essays in psychology. However... you do get better. I'm getting distinctions now on my modules and i'm well on track for a first class degree. I was out of education for 20 + years and learnt myself/and as I went along.
Lots of you tube videos, plus your first year of uni modules aren't so heavily weighted towards your final classification (Open University standards anyway, not sure about brick uni's), so this gives you time to improve etc.
I'm now very good at essay writing.
He can't go far wrong with PEEL or PEEEL
Point - state his point
Explain - explain it
Example - provide an example
Evaluate - critically evaluate whatever it is you are talking about if the essay requires it (most do, top marks are gained here)
Link - Link what you are saying to the essay question/link to next paragraph
Need to do this for each paragraph.
Also an introduction and summary.
Academic writing also requires referencing to prevent plagiarism, so he will need to perfect that, but again you pick it up. I don't think he should be scared of it, although essays are daunting, you can improve.

He should forget about a degree in a MFL - he will be expected to read and write in the language. He will not enjoy his Spanish A Level once the lit part kicks in.

I'd suggest maths and linguistics instead, if he enjoys the mechanics of language.
It's a great combo for AI and the brave new world that awaits us.

Hmm... I looked at the UCL Maths with Spanish and they want Further Maths. Also only GCSE in a lang so he would be very bored.

Joint honours prob way to go...he's not done Econ A level though (essays?!). To the PP who mentioned that he could improve in essays, that's a good point. He can write GCSE level (9 and 8 in Eng Lang/ Lit) but he just doesn't enjoy it and when I read a personal statement he wrote the other day I was surprised. He loves to use big, long words (language!) but the actual content is lacking.

Oxford for languages is almost solely literature based - he won’t like that! Not sure re Cambs. My Dd has just started a pure MFL degree (3 languages) but she loves writing & literature so is fine with it. If he has other skills too then combining Spanish with something else sounds like a great idea - a lot of places will offer both. Good luck to him, linguists are the best!

There are loads of essays in MFL degrees. For my DC their main form of assessment at university was essays, other than their speaking exams and translation exams. They probably wrote 4 essays a semester anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 words an essay.

Linguistics at undergraduate level will involve lots of essays.

If he doesn't like essays then the whole teaching approach at Oxbridge for most subjects won't suit him.

If he doesn't like reading at all then is an academic degree an appropriate option?

Like @WearyAuldWumman I was coming on here to recommend the Heriot Watt Interpreting and Translating degree.
As a single languages graduate myself, and my husband a joint languages graduate, I know loads of people who "just" did MFL, including among our recently graduated children's friends.

True. Maybe he will be better off getting a degree apprenticeship after A levels. He is perfectly capable of reading, just doesn't. By that, I mean novels or newspapers in his spare time. Of course he had to read and write a certain amount for GCSE, but not a lot. If he's interested in something, he may read about it, I don't know, he hasn't reached that level yet.

This writing stuff is all quite new to me, this week really. His twin sister wrote the same application as him, and whilst her grades in all subjects were lower, her written application to the same course he applied to, was fantastic (she is doing English, Hist and Psych A levels though!). Then he talked about disliking Geog as there is much more essay writing than there was at GCSE so I put them together and started worrying about the degrees he's currently interested in!

This thread has clarified a lot and given great suggestions, which I really appreciate. Thank you.

Can I just say wrt Spanish A level – the literature element is one book and one film, one exam where you write an essay on each. It’s worth 20% of the total A level marks and in fact half of those marks are for the language used; the analysis and structure of the two essays is marked out of 40 (20 for each), so just 10% of the total marks. There are as many marks allocated to two summaries in the reading and listening paper.

The book and film is understandably focused on by A level teachers (me included) as it is a new thing and a challenging aspect for some (tho IMHO the level is no higher than a strong GCSE Eng lit essay) but in fact it is a small element. Just in case he fears disliking it going forward.

I do agree with everyone tho that he will have to do essays at uni. DS2 is studying biology and he had to write a dissertation.

You don’t have to do essays for a maths degree. You barely have to write in sentences. At least I didn’t. (Cambridge.)

However, I would be very nervous about doing a maths degree without further maths and even more so without further maths or physics. Even if the university lets you in you will be starting the degree so far behind everyone else that it would be a horrific first year.